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Let's be clear about what the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) told the Arkansas Department of Human Services last week: The state was not in compliance with federal law. The state violated federal regulations in imposing a 10-day deadline for Medicaid beneficiaries to respond to confusing letters the state sent as part of its troubled income-verficiation-and-renewal process. Medicaid rules require an annual renewal process and clearly demand that beneficiaries get 30 days to respond. This is the issue that the Arkansas Blog and others have been noting for weeks while the Asa Hutchinson administration has insisted that the state was perfectly in compliance with the law. CMS has now settled the dispute. (Ramsey, 8/30)

Arkansas officials on Friday suspended a push to terminate coverage for thousands of people on Medicaid for the second time this month after the federal government told the state to give beneficiaries more time to prove they're eligible. The Department of Human Services said the federal government has told the state to give beneficiaries 30 days to prove they qualify for coverage, rather than the 10 days the state had been using. DHS spokeswoman Amy Webb said the state is revising its notices to reflect the new deadline, and didn't know when they would resume. (DeMillo, 8/28)

The state’s Department of Community Health is asking for additional state funds to cover projected Georgia enrollment for Medicaid and PeachCare, which for the first time will exceed 2 million. The budget proposal also requests $23 million to cover the high cost of drugs to treat hepatitis C patients in both the midyear fiscal 2016 budget and in the 2017 plan. (Miller, 8/28)

California lawmakers hope to tackle major issues in the state’s health care program for the poor over the next two weeks, starting with how to ensure the state doesn’t lose $1 billion in federal funding. The potential billion-dollar loss comes as critics say Medi-Cal is already struggling to meet the needs of the 12.5 million people who rely on the system. (Gutierrez, 8/30)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said New Jersey should repay the federal government $32.2 million after a federal audit found medical records and other documents missing when state officials submitted claims for Medicaid reimbursement. The findings, detailed in a report obtained by The Record to be released today, mark the second time in four years that federal officials have raised concerns about questionable claims for care provided to homebound elderly or low-income residents. After the earlier audit, they called for $145 million to be returned. (Rizzo and Layton, 8/31)

Some of Iowa’s top elected officials — most notably Gov. Terry Branstad — have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from some of the companies that vied for lucrative contracts to manage Iowa’s annual $4.2 billion Medicaid program. Lobbyists and political action committees representing the four companies whose proposals were selected earlier this month donated nearly $68,000 to those campaigns since 2010, a Des Moines Register investigation shows. At least another $57,000 flowed in from companies that submitted bids but failed to win the contracts. (Clayworth, 8/29)